What's the difference between
and
Enter two words to compare and contrast their definitions, origins, and synonyms to better understand how those words are related.

Mere vs Meme - What's the difference?

mere | meme |

As nouns the difference between mere and meme

is that mere is the sea while meme is any unit of cultural information, such as a practice or idea, that is transmitted verbally or by repeated action from one mind to another in a comparable way to the transmission of genes.

As a verb mere

is to limit; bound; divide or cause division in.

As an adjective mere

is famous.

mere

English

(wikipedia mere)

Etymology 1

From (etyl) mere, from (etyl) .

Alternative forms

* (l), (l), (l)

Noun

(en noun)
  • (obsolete) the sea
  • (dialectal, or, literary) a pool; a small lake or pond; marsh
  • (Drayton)
    (Tennyson)
  • * 1955 , William Golding, The Inheritors , Faber & Faber 2005, p. 194:
  • Lok got to his feet and wandered along by the marshes towards the mere where Fa had disappeared.
    Derived terms
    * mereswine * mermaid * merman * merfolk

    Etymology 2

    From (etyl), from (etyl) .

    Alternative forms

    * (l), (l), (l), (l)

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • boundary, limit; a boundary-marker; boundary-line
  • * 1590 , Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene , III.ix:
  • The Troian Brute'' did first that Citie found, / And ''Hygate'' made the meare thereof by West, / And ''Ouert gate by North: that is the bound / Toward the land; two riuers bound the rest.

    Verb

    (mer)
  • (obsolete) To limit; bound; divide or cause division in.
  • (obsolete) To set divisions and bounds.
  • Etymology 3

    From (etyl), from (etyl) .

    Alternative forms

    * (l), (l)

    Adjective

    (en adjective)
  • (obsolete) famous.
  • Etymology 4

    From (etyl) meer, from (etyl) mier, from (etyl) merus. Perhaps influenced by (etyl) , or conflated with Etymology 3.

    Adjective

    (er)
  • (label) Pure, unalloyed .
  • * 1590 , (Edmund Spenser), The Faerie Queene , III.8:
  • So oft as I this history record, / My heart doth melt with meere compassion.
  • * , I.56:
  • Meere .
  • (label) Nothing less than; complete, downright .
  • * , II.3.7:
  • If every man might have what he wouldwe should have another chaos in an instant, a meer confusion.
  • Just, only; no more than , pure and simple, neither more nor better than might be expected.
  • *
  • Thus the red damask curtains which now shut out the fog-laden, drizzling atmosphere of the Marylebone Road, had cost a mere song, and yet they might have been warranted to last another thirty years. A great bargain also had been the excellent Axminster carpet which covered the floor;.
  • * {{quote-book, year=2006, author=(Edwin Black)
  • , chapter=2, title= Internal Combustion , passage=More than a mere source of Promethean sustenance to thwart the cold and cook one's meat, wood was quite simply mankind's first industrial and manufacturing fuel.}}
  • * {{quote-magazine, date=2012-03
  • , author=, volume=100, issue=2, page=106 , magazine=(American Scientist) , title= Pixels or Perish , passage=Drawings and pictures are more than mere ornaments in scientific discourse. Blackboard sketches, geological maps, diagrams of molecular structure, astronomical photographs, MRI images, the many varieties of statistical charts and graphs: These pictorial devices are indispensable tools for presenting evidence, for explaining a theory, for telling a story.}}
    Derived terms
    * merely

    Etymology 5

    From (etyl) .

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • a Maori war-club
  • Statistics

    *

    Anagrams

    * ----

    meme

    English

    (wikipedia meme)

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • Any unit of cultural information, such as a practice or idea, that is transmitted verbally or by repeated action from one mind to another in a comparable way to the transmission of genes.
  • *1976 , (Richard Dawkins), The Selfish Gene :
  • *:Examples of memes are tunes, ideas, catch-phrases, clothes fashions, ways of making pots or of building arches.
  • *2002 , Rita Carter, Exploring Consciousness , p. 242:
  • *:Related memes tend to form mutually supporting meme-complexes such as religions, political ideologies, scientific theories, and New Age dogmas.
  • (Internet, slang) Something that is copied and circulated online with slight adaptions, including quizzes, basic pictures, video templates etc. A meme can be a photo or artwork, usually with text, often codified with a distinct white block lettering text on the image. If a particular, standardized image is used, there is a protocol to how it should be used
  • * 2005 , "darklily", OT: Livejournal'' (discussion on Internet newsgroup ''soc.sexuality.general )
  • I do...but my journal is a mess. It's mostly filled with memes and my bitching about a house I am building.
  • *2012 , Greg Jarboe, You Tube and Video Marketing , 2nd edition:
  • *:The idea was to append Keyboard Cat to the end of a blooper video to "play" that person offstage after a mistake or gaffe, like getting the hook in the days of vaudeville. The meme became popular, Ashton Kutcher tweeted about it to more than 1 million followers, and more than 4,000 such videos have now been made.
  • *2013 , The Guardian , (headline), 8 Feb 2013:
  • *:Harlem Shake meme : the new Gangnam Style?
  • Derived terms

    * memedom * memome * memeplex * meme pool * memetic * memetic algorithm * memetic engineering * memetics

    See also

    * culturgen * email forward * replicator